The Supreme Court on Monday reaffirmed that the process of selecting judges for the High Courts and the Supreme Court through the collegium system is not open to judicial scrutiny and does not fall within the ambit of the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
A partial working day bench comprising Justices B. V. Nagarathna and Joymalya Bagchi declined to entertain a writ petition filed by senior Himachal Pradesh judicial officer Arvind Malhotra, who alleged that the Himachal Pradesh High Court collegium had failed to consider his candidature for elevation to the High Court despite an earlier Supreme Court ruling.
During the hearing, the bench made it clear that courts would not interfere with collegium decisions, observing that opening such decisions to judicial examination could lead to endless litigation.
“We do not want to open a Pandora’s box. We will not interfere in the collegium decisions,” the bench remarked.
Malhotra’s counsel, senior advocate Balbir Singh, argued that a Supreme Court judgment delivered on September 6, 2024, had criticised the then Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court for unilaterally excluding the names of two senior judicial officers, including Malhotra, from consideration. The judgment had emphasised that recommendations for judicial appointments must be made collectively by the collegium rather than by an individual authority.
However, the bench held that the collegium’s decisions are based on subjective assessments of suitability and are not open to challenge through writ petitions. It stated that neither High Courts nor the Supreme Court can direct collegiums to recommend particular candidates.
“The issue of selection of candidates for appointment of judges to constitutional courts is neither amenable to judicial scrutiny nor comes under the ambit of the RTI Act,” the bench observed.
Addressing Malhotra’s grievance that officers junior to him had been recommended for elevation, the court reiterated that seniority alone does not confer a right to become a High Court judge.
“It is a question of suitability as assessed by the collegium. Recommending a junior officer does not give a cause of action to challenge the recommendations. Merely because of seniority, one is not entitled to elevation,” the bench said.
The court noted that on June 2, the Supreme Court collegium had approved the appointment of three judicial officers—Chirag Bhanu Singh, Bhupesh Sharma and Yogesh Jaswal—as judges of the Himachal Pradesh High Court after considering the recommendations of the High Court collegium and conducting interactions with the candidates.
While declining to interfere with the collegium process, the bench granted Malhotra liberty to approach the High Court for expeditious completion of a pending inquiry concerning him. The judges also offered a word of encouragement, telling him, “You are young and should wait.”
The court further stressed that once a recommendation made by a High Court collegium is examined and approved by the Supreme Court collegium after considering all relevant materials from the High Court and the government, there is no scope for judicial review of that decision.
“Once the Supreme Court collegium approves it, we cannot enter into a debate on its correctness on the judicial side,” the bench stated.
The petition was ultimately disposed of, with the court granting Malhotra the liberty to pursue any other remedies available to him in accordance with law.
